Past Creative Projects
Souvenirs for the Present (June 2022) was presented at Northern Rivers Community Gallery, Ballina, NSW. Photo prints, light boxes and video work featured in the exhibition - displayed as a journey through varying landscapes offered up as souvenirs; documenting something to behold while reflecting a changing landscape back to the viewer to contemplate and embrace.
Souvenirs for the Future (December 2019)at Dominic Mersch Gallery, Sydney was presented as an immersive nature experience presented as a series of photographic images and light boxes. Forging a path through varying landscapes, the images focused on micro views of verdant fields, wild gardens, seaweeds, mosses and ferns against backdrops of threatened or vulnerable land and seascapes. The viewer was invited to observe and connect with natural landscapes and underwater habitats.
The ongoing conversation about the Anthropocene, the geologic age in which human activity is the dominant influence on climate and the environment, comes into play in everything we do and everywhere we look. We are reminded daily of the urgency to restore and protect forests and to renew wetlands and marine environments.
But how do we navigate the way forward as stewards of ecosystems in the future? There is growing recognition that by actively immersing ourselves in biophilia, we can build a stronger connection with the natural world, expanding our ecological sensitivity and eco intelligence.
Souvenirs for the Future brings awareness to the urgency of planting for increased biodiversity, growing seaweed to help cool and clean up oceans, and encouraging movements to plant and protect landscape and improve local ecologies. Alongside views into underwater worlds of carbon-sequestering seaweeds, Julia’s photographs depict micro ecosystems of varying landscapes that are also vital habitats for birds, insects and marine life.
While presented as aesthetic windows, Julia’s images are intended to be viewed as a pathway through nature and a record of walks in wild and not-so-wild places.
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Souvenirs for the Future also represents mementos that serve as relics or tokens of lost landscapes and threatened flora and fauna. These could be seen as a metaphor for ways in which we might reflect back and wonder how we could have treated our planet so carelessly. The next generation might even ask: “What did the garden sound like when there were many birds?” or, “Did you see many bees and butterflies when you were young?”
